Codex Digestive Biscuits
They gave me some of these in Addenbrookes. On Friday when I came out I Must have ate about half a packet, as they were quite tasty. On Saturday, I had a blotchy face and a red neck, which is one of the ways gluten affects me.. Just likeit used to before I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free. C was always plastering moisturiser on my face to no avail. Everything else, I ate on those two days was either something I knew I could trust or had cooked myself.
On Saturday I looked at the biscuit packet and found that they contained codex gluten-free wheat starch. It may be so, but I think my body had reacted to it, just like it reacts to maltodextrin. So thank you, biscuits for glutening me! I shall avoid codex products in future and especially those with gluten-free wheat starch. That must be something like alcohol-free Scotch Whisky! If firms like Trufree, Doves Farm, Village Bakery and countless others can get it right, it can’t be that difficult.
Today, I woke up fine and look and feel normal.
I Peeled My First Orange Today
I never used to eat apples and oranges, except as cider and juice respectively. Over the last year or so, I’ve started to eat apples, but not oranges.
In Hong Kong, I used to have an orange at breakfast and looked forward to the fresh taste in my mouth.
Yesterday, I bought some oranges and today I peeled one and ate it. That is the first time I ever have. It was good!
As a child we did have oranges at home, but I can never remember eating one there. Usually, I would have eaten a banana, although I can remember Michael Smith sharing one of his oranges with me whilst watching Spurs.
I also remember the time, when my mother bought some blood oranges and my sister peeled them all and didn’t eat any of them as she thought they were off or something.
Evian on Cathay Pacific
I suppose they fly it halfway round the world, but surely there is something good and more local to Hong Kong.
A Very Good Sweet and Sour Pork
I just had a very nice lunch. It was all gluten-free too!
It was thickened with corn flour.
Feeling a little better
i’m actually writing this on the computer attsched to the hospital bed. So if it’s crap I apologise.
The care is excellent and I’ve had umpteen CT scsns. Chinese food makes excellent hospital, but then I knew that because when C. had our first child in the middlesex in London, there was a lady from the chinese legation in London who had her baby at the same time and she had her food brought in and shared it with everyone else.
The food is all gluten free.
Cynicism About Organic Foods
I should say before I continue, that I do buy organic foods.
But!
I am always suspicious that they don’t live up to the hype.
Take my supper yesterday. I ate several Jersey Royal potatoes, which were not organic. But they are produced by farmers who care about the quality of their product. They were exquisite.
Take just before Christmas. A farmer brought me some washed supermarket parsnips round, as a favour for his wife using a stable for a pony. They were much better than those you get from Waitrose or Sainbury’s, but that is where they would have ended up. However, that takes a couple of days, whereas they arrived from his field in a couple of hours.
So it seems that how the product is handled after picking is perhaps as important than what goes on before.
I suspect that it is more true with something like meat. After all I’ve kept animals for years and know that the better you treat them the better they perform. Or in the case of food animals, does that mean taste?
So where you know about the provenance of the animal and can trust the farmer are you getting a better and perhaps a more humanely kept product. After all organic means that some drugs used for medicinal purposes are banned. Is that humane?
So when I read this report in The Times yesterday, my cynicism was increased.
This says that a study by Professor Benton of Leeds University has shown that organic farms are not necessarily the best for wildlife.
The research found that organic farms had, on average, 12 per cent more biodiversity in terms of the number and variety of plants, birds, earthworms and insects. But the yield from organic fields was 55 per cent lower than from conventional fields growing similar crops in the same areas. While there were more plants and butterflies on organic farms, there was no difference in the number of bees and there were 30 per cent more hoverflies on conventional farms.
Organic fields contained more magpies and jays but 10 per cent fewer small birds such as yellowhammers, corn buntings, linnets, skylarks and lapwings. The researchers found that the larger birds, which were attracted to organic farms by their denser patches of woodland, were scaring away the smaller birds and preying on their nests.
It is all very interesting.
One point Professor Benton said was that greater benefits were detected where there were clusters of organic farms. That I would understand as in the studlands of Newmarket, there appears to be a much greater diversity than on ordinary agricultural land. That is also because horses are such inefficient grazers and leave lots for hares and deer.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It was very cold in Brussels, so I decided that it would not be a bad idea to have a good lunch in a warm restaurant.
I chose Aux Armes de Bruxelles.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It is quite an expensive restaurant, as one would expect if a past Kings of Belgium is amongst its former clients, but I chose the set lunch and a decent small carafe of white wine. There was a good choice and I had Ardennes ham followed by grilled salmon in a béarnaise sauce with boiled potatoes, and then ice cream. I followed it with coffee.
I thought it was reasonable at just under 28 euros.
As to being gluten-free, the waiter understood and I had no reaction at all.
Around Newcastle City Centre
I walked down from St. James’ Park to the centre of Newcastle.
These days city centres look very much the same with steel and glass shopping centres, although Newcastle does have quite a lot of grand stone buildings in an area called Grainger Town.
Stone Buildings in Newcastle City Centre
This is just a side street and there are a lot of grand building still left in the area, although T. Dan Smith and John Poulson would have probably knocked the lot down if they hadn’t got charged with corruption.
Luckily sense was seen and the area is now being restored.
But that didn’t stop this hideous edifice being erected by the Co-Op.
A Hideous Edifice
Can a building like this have ever looked good? Even as a set of drawings!
Do I have one abiding memory of Newmarket City Centre?
Yes! I’ve never been to a place with so much smell of chips and burgers.
Wonderful Building – Shame About the Contents
One of the places I wanted to see in Newcastle was the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
It certainly is a magnificent building.
The trouble is the contents. And judging by the lack of visitors in the various galleries, the good people of Tyneside don’t think much of them either.
However the restaurant was good. Or certainly my venison was excellent. And it was gluten-free, of course!
I ate early, but by the time I left, the restaurant was full.
So perhaps if you give people what they want you attract the punters.
The Missing Sock
The Missing Sock is a strange name for a pub and it the new name of the old Prince Albert at Quy.
The Missing Sock
I did pop in after a game of tennis to enquire if they could do gluten-free food. Not sure if they are clued up or not!
But I’ll give them a try.
I do wonder though, if the amount of money they have spent on the pub might be wasted, as after all it is a pub you drive to and it may just be too remote. But they know about pubs and I don’t.
The Anonymous Widower 